Archive for June, 2016

It’s been a while, but I wanted to make sure I kept my readers informed on how me and my church are doing. Believe me, it’s been great because it’s been really, really profitable for me. Click here for the previous update.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about Praise Immanuel Mighty Prince Temple (aka P.I.M.P Temple). I’ve given you a little history about the church. You know, things like how we came to hire Vicki “Boom Boom” Parker, the former exotic dancer, as the main performer…er…the ministry lead in the Liturgical Dance Ministry; how we built up the transportation ministry using the, um, skills of “Keys” MacMillan a mostly reformed car thief; and how our motto “Give until it hurts and then watch God work” keeps people giving to the ministry even when it makes no sense to give.

The truth is, I developed a set of principles that made me the alpha pimp I am. And I guarantee these principles can transform you from someone who just preaches the gospel to the CEO of a multi-million dollar, multi-national organization. And these principles will help you live as large as I do.

Of course, this is a good place to remind you about the book I wrote: “Pimping for Dummies.” And for a mere $19.95 you can have access to my monster best seller. I’ve supplied a link to let you order the book. Click here. But don’t order it, and definitely don’t read it until you are ready to up your game a thousand percent and you are ready to do whatever it takes to have your own P.I.M.P. Temple.

What kind of results can you expect? Take a look at the following pictures. The first picture is the outside of my church before I took over. The second one is the interior of the sad little church. They had just bought the 15 white chairs from Walmart the week before. The two chair in the lower left of the photograph belonged to one of the members.

Jesus Christ Apostolic Church – My First Church

Interior of JC Apostolic

Once I applied the principles which I lay out in “Pimping for Dummies” (on sale for $19.95 if you click here) it was a short time before the congregation started growing. Of course, none of the original members stayed. They didn’t share my vision for my church. They kept talking about the vision Jesus has for the church. Before too long, after several moves (mostly away from the poor community we had been in) we went from the dinky little church you saw earlier, to a church with the interior you see in the next picture. It took a few years but I was able to really enjoy the ride.

Interior of P.I.M.P Temple

This baby seats over five thousand people at once. Five thousand! And I can fill the seats during all three services on Sunday. Sometimes even the overflow rooms are packed out. When I have special events, they get packed out again, ripe for passing the collection plates. Wait. We use those big containers like the ones they use at the chicken place.

So, you ask, what are these principles I keep talking about? How do you make a church grow?

The first thing I have to do is define our terms. When some people read the phrase “make the church grow”, they might think I’m talking about helping the congregation grow in spiritual maturity. Let me disabuse you of that notion. You don’t want them to grow in spiritual maturity. You want them to grow in numbers. Take a look at just about any of the mega churches’ websites and you will see that they are always talking about how the pastor grew the church from some pathetic small number to thousands or tens of thousands of congregants.

And the bigger a church is, the easier it is for the members to live in anonymity. And the people will want to be there because they can look religious without being held accountable. They don’t have to actually be Christians.

Remember, it’s not about spiritual growth. It’s about numbers. And to grow the numbers, these are the things you should never do:

Never challenge the congregation spiritually. It turns out the pastor before me actually had expectations for the folks. He wanted them to study for themselves, to memorize scripture they have wrestled with to understand, and to pray the Scripture – in context.

Never give them specific biblical reasons for change. People will think you are trying to judge them. And rather than actually stand before a holy God, they’ll leave and find a place where they can be comfortable in their sin.

Never preach using an accurate understanding of Scripture. It’s not your job to explain what God has to say in Scripture. If you want to get large, you have to distort the message in just the right places. Scare the Bejesus out of them by telling them they are robbing God if they don’t support your latest project by giving their tithes and offering. Make them think the reference in Psalms (for you are the head and not the tail) refers to them and their finances.

“But Melvin,” you say. “You’ve only told me what I shouldn’t do. What should I do?”

That’s easy. And you’ll be surprised you didn’t think of these principles once I tell you. Of course, you can get greater detail in the book that’s on sale right now for just $19.95 at this link.

Here’s what you do:

Decide what you want them to think. Then preach those verses that you can best make say that. For example, one of the psalms says “Touch not God’s anointed” and someplace else it says “And do his prophet no harm”. At every opportunity tell them you are God’s anointed, that this is talking about the pastor, the elder, the bishop or whatever other title you decide to give yourself. And of course talking about you, questioning your teachings is the same as doing God’s prophet harm. Make sure they think that Malachi 2:10 is mandatory and that the storehouse is your church. Once you’ve loosened their hold on Scripture, you can make them think the storehouse is you. But don’t push that too soon. It can have some really awful blow-back that could take a few years to get past.

Hire some killer musicians and singers. Always have the keyboard playing in the background, ready to emphasize your statements and distract from the fact that you don’t have anything to say. And if your musician times it right, you should be able to get one-third to one-half the church to jump and shout. And an added benefit: once they get worked up, it’s a lot more likely they will bring cash money up to lay at your feet. And never, ever ask the musicians about their sexual orientation.

Bring in some big names. It doesn’t matter if you are Trinitarian and they are Oneness, if they deny the deity of Jesus Christ or not. It doesn’t even matter if the big name is under investigation, divorced several times or accused of accosting barely adult boys. The main qualifications are that the speakers have a mega church of their own, that they be a television personality and that they are willing to work with you to promote you. A plus is if they are willing to work alongside the unsaved or those hostile to the Gospel. Once you are able to afford their honorarium you can pick someone like Ken Ulmer, T. D. Jakes, Fred Price and a host of others. These people are guaranteed to draw the big crowds without you having to risk the crowd hearing a properly exegeted message.

Oh, and don’t forget, click here and you can get my book for $19.95. And I’ll be holding a Leadership conference near the end of the year. If you sign up now, you’ll get the book as a gift. The cost of the conference is a mere $527.56. But the return on your investment, if you use my principles, will be in the millions of dollars. We should have the information up in a couple of days. I think.

And remember: They’re the sheeple. They want to be fleeced. If you don’t someone else will.